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Friday, February 10, 2017

Monday, March 14, 2016

Make It Mondays are usually reserved for some sort of
craft/DIY project, but this week I just couldn’t resist a recipe..you CAN “make
it,” after all! My mom passed along a similar recipe she had come across
recently, and it was right up my alley. I love recipes that use a vegetable
alternative in place of carb/bread components…my beloved cauliflower crust
pizza and cauliflower fried rice just to name a few…and this fits right in!

Feast your eyes on a “crustless” veggie quiche! The “crust”
is made of sweet potato, and it is HANDS DOWN my favorite recipe of all time. I
have been known to say that before, but mark my words that THIS.IS.IT. The
easiest, quickest, healthiest and MOST delicious recipe out there!

Sweet Potato Crust Quiche

Ingredients

Cooking
spray/coconut oil spray

One
large sweet potato

1
Tbs olive oil

Minced
garlic

¼
onion

5
larger baby bella or white mushrooms

One
box/bag baby spinach

½
cup reduced fat milk

4
large eggs

¼
cup egg whites

Salt/pepper

Paprika

Italian
seasoning

6-8
cherry tomatoes, quartered

¼
cup crumbled feta cheese

1.Spray a 9-inch pie plate with coconut oil spray
(or cooking spray).

2.Peel sweet potato and slice with mandolin into
1/8” slices.

3.Layer sweet potato slices along bottom and sides
of pie plate, attempting to get the best “seal” possible.

4.Spray a very light layer of coconut oil
spray/cooking spray over the top, and bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes.

5.Add olive oil to skillet over medium heat, and
sauté garlic.

6.Add onions, and sauté until almost tender. Add
mushrooms and do the same, followed by spinach until just wilted. Remove from
heat and set aside.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

That four day week last week was killer. I’m still not sure
what day it is or which end is up. I’m
going to go ahead and trust my gut that today IS Tuesday, in fact, and move
forward with this week’s Top Twosday. My top two at the moment:

1.Prosecco. That’s all.

2.With my list of injuries that keeps growing and
knocks me out of the running game too often these days, I have had to be very
careful about my calorie intake. And with my added obligations and dwindling
time, I am also looking to build a rotating menu of quick, easy, delicious,
budget-friendly (and of course healthy and veggie) recipes. I finally tried out
a cauliflower crust pizza today, and I can safely say this will be on our menu
at LEAST once a week from now until….forever.

I experimented a bit and changed up
some recipes I had seen in the past to ultimately end up with the perfect
texture and consistency…way closer to a pizza crust than I could ever have
imagined! And I added some of my favorite toppings that I had on hand (including
a white/pesto sauce rather than traditional red sauce). But there are SOOO many
awesome topping combos I can’t wait to try!

The pizza wasn’t mushy and didn’t
fall apart when picking up each piece, and in a way I was almost disappointed
by how little cauliflower flavor there was! BUT, this made it feel like we were
truly eating REAL PIZZA…but we could each have SIX pieces with almost ZERO
guilt!

I can’t wait to put together a
special tutorial for the recipe, but since several people are asking I thought
I would share it here on the blog for now.

Holly’s Favorite Cauliflower Crust
Pizza

Makes one 12-inch pizza

Ingredients

Crust

1
large head cauliflower, coarsely chopped and washed

1
egg

¼
cup grated Parmesan cheese

¼
cup shredded mozzarella cheese

2
tsp salt

2
tsp pepper

1
tsp Italian seasoning

1
tsp garlic powder

Sauce/Topping

½
cup alfredo sauce

1
Tbs prepared pesto

1/3
cup shredded mozzarella

A
few handfuls of baby arugula

Balsamic
reduction, drizzle

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.Add about two inches of water to a large pot and
bring to a boil.

3.Add chopped cauliflower, cover and boil on high
for 6-7 minutes.

4.Strain cauliflower and immediately transfer to a
food processor.

5.Alternate 2-second pulsing and stirring until a
coarse rice texture is achieved (not a paste or puree).

6.Spread a cheesecloth or thin dish towel on the
countertop and spoon cauliflower onto it. Let cool slightly for 3-4 minutes
(will still be hot/steaming).

7.Wrap the cloth tightly and wring over the sink
to get rid of excess moisture. Keep going until towel stops dripping. Use a
second towel or food prep glove if it is still too hot to touch directly.

8.Transfer cauliflower to a large bowl and add
egg, parmesan, mozzarella, salt, pepper, seasoning and garlic power. Stir or
knead with hands to combine.

9.Press (don’t roll) your “dough” onto a sheet of
parchment paper to about ½ inch thickness. Build up the outer edges to be
slightly thicker to prevent burnt crusts.

10.Transfer
the parchment and crust onto a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 40
minutes or until just browned around edges and very lightly bubbling.

11.Remove crust from oven and set aside.

12.Combine
alfredo sauce and pesto in a small bowl, and spread evenly over pizza crust.
Top with mozzarella and arugula. Drizzle desired amount of balsamic reduction
over entire pizza.

13.Return
to oven for 8-10 minutes.

14.Remove
from oven and let cool on parchment/baking sheet for 5-10 minutes to allow
crust to “set” further.

This is seriously one of my new all-time
favorites! We could not believe how close to a traditional pizza it was (but
WAY healthier), and I can say with 100% confidence we will never go back to a
bread/dough crust again!

Keep your eye out for a super fun and
detailed tutorial on this in the next few weeks, but until then I hope you
enjoy! Let me know how your cauliflower crust turns out and what you top it
with!

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Thursday already?! Four day weeks are the devil/best thing
ever. I hope everyone’s savings jars are going well so far! We would love to
hear how you are doing!

As I said last week…saving money is always a good idea. But
let’s not forget making money. We lived
on a golf course when I was a young child, and my brother and I would collect
all of the stray balls that landed in our backyard and sell them back to the golfers
through the chain link fence for a decent profit. When the course ranger put a
stop to that, we disguised our little business as a lemonade stand. And I have
always been a garage sale girl. I have
vivid memories of holding garage sales in almost all of my extended family
members’ driveways growing up. My own one-year-old and three-year-old have
probably already participated in more yard sales than the average American!

While I firmly believe that the most money can be “made” by
simply saving and not spending, there is certainly something to be said for
turning seemingly invaluable possessions into cash. You may not have a backyard
full of golf balls, but I can almost assure you that you have a few thousand
dollars of potential cash sitting around your house.

Around the summertime of last year, I really started to
adopt the less-is-more mentality and lifestyle. I combed through closets and
cupboards over and over to find out what I truly needed and/or valued. We
turned our dining room into an “eBay room,”
and I went to town. In just two weeks, I had made over $400! A car payment..
month’s worth of groceries…a plane ticket…a credit card bill…a full month of
Mother’s Day Out tuition…..$400 was just SITTING around in the form of…extra
stuff. I had always heard the eBay advertisements and testimonials of friends
and family but never thought that I had anything of value to sell.

WRONG.

Newsflash: People will buy anything. People will buy
everything. An old stuffed animal sitting in your child’s closet may be the
EXACT one some poor kid has lost somewhere across the country (true story…we
sold a random Target bear for $40). Once-worn Halloween costumes in the attic?
List them in September/October and make a killing. The random graphic t-shirt you bought at Old
Navy five years ago might be someone’s favorite. LIST IT. I hoarded my favorite
Bath & Body Works 2014 Fall candle (bought at $8/each), and it turns out
that a lot of other people loved the scent also. I ended up selling those bad
boys (that had been sitting around in a cabinet for over a year) for $39
EACH. THIRTY-NINE EFFING DOLLARS. EACH.

You never, ever know what people will buy. It takes one iPhone pic and two minutes (or
less) of your time to list these items. There is nothing to lose, and I can
ALMOST guarantee you will sell MOST everything you list. Besides the extra income, the greatest
benefit is the extra space, weight off your shoulders and freedom you will feel
from unloading possessions. Live simply, friends. It is the greatest happiness
there is.

Here is a list of some of my best-selling, most unexpected best-selling and most
profitable items from the last year on eBay.

-Brand name baby clothes: We all splurged (or
received) a few Baby Gap/Peek/Hanna items when we were pregnant or celebrating
our little one’s arrival. Some of them might even still have tags attached.

-Misc. Baby Gear: We had about five Skip Hop Zoo
bags/diaper bags/rolling backpacks, etc. Breast pump tubes that had never been
opened. Nursing covers. Baby Bjorns. Etc. The markup on these items is
incredible, and they are used so rarely and for such a short period of time
that they are usually in excellent condition.

-Craft Supplies: Cricut cartridges and paper
punches are hugely popular on the secondary market.

-Stuffed Animals: I have to say, I would NEVER
have considered buying my child a stuffed animal on eBay. But when your kid
becomes attached to a discontinued Pillow Pet or random 2012 department store
stuffed animal that is no longer available, you will get desperate for a
backup/replacement and turn to eBay in hopes that someone has that exact one to
sell. Promise.

-Costumes: Any seasonal item, especially
Halloween costumes, sell wildly if you have the patience to wait and list it at
the appropriate time. Again, because the retail markup is so crazy and because
“used” items in this category are SO gently used, selling them on eBay is a
breeze.

Those are just a FEW of the categories. Really and truly, no
exaggeration, EVERY item I have listed in the past year has sold within 18
days. I was a skeptic, but I finally tried it and now my only regret is not
having done so sooner.

Finally, a few tips:

-Take decent photos: You don’t have to be a
professional photographer. iPhone photos are fine. But invest in a $2 white
foam board to lay your items on, and try to take advantage of natural light.
Use PicTapGo (especially the “Lights On”
feature to brighten things up. And if you’d like.. include a few stock photos
of the item in its original state, but beware that some companies police this
and will petition to have your listing removed.

-Don’t lose money on shipping: In the very
beginning, I underestimated the weight of an item and lost money on the fixed
cost or free shipping I offered to customers. From then on, I always selected
the “charge actual cost” option which I highly recommend. This lets you invoice
the customer for the actual cost of shipping their item to their actual zip
code once they have agreed to the purchase and completed it. If you want to charge a fixed cost or offer
free shipping wrapped into the cost of your item, make sure to weigh your item
(with packaging) first and calculate the potential shipping cost based on a zip
code furthest from you. I like to use Seattle, for example. And I just weigh
things on a regular food
scale...a great (and inexpensive) investment if you are going to be
shipping lots of things.

-Finally, time your listings and research similar
items for sale if at all possible. BUT, at the end of the day…just LIST IT. I
sold a Halloween costume twenty minutes ago (in mid-January). And I sold a pair
of road bike shoes for $20 more than an identical pair in the same size was
listed for. Those may be flukes…so please research….but again, you just never
know. It costs nothing to list an item, so do it.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Every Friday is festive around our house…because…hey, it’s
Friday! But this week is extra special because I am getting in the Valentine’s
spirit a bit early with a festive printable! You may remember the “Merry
Kissmas” Chapstick gift printable I shared last month…the perfect last-minute,
inexpensive, fun little treat for teachers/classmates/neighbors. After all the
candy (calorie)-consuming and budget-blowing that happens between Halloween and
New Year’s, I thought it would be nice to have an even cheaper and non-edible
option for Valentine’s favors. Just like the Chapstick favors, you can do this
on the fly (shoutout to you, 24-hour Walgreens!), but even better is the fact
that you can theoretically spend all of ONE DOLLAR for a set of 24 of these babies!
I know you’re on the edge of your seats..

If you have ever spent any time with a kid two years or
older, you will totally understand the Band-Aid obsession. Band-Aids are my
kids’ lovelanguage, and after spending
a completely absurd amount of money on Band-Aids over a couple of months, we
boycotted the Target pharmacy section and headed to the Dollar Tree where you
can score a 24-pack of truly badass character (or plain) Band-Aids for ONE
EFFING DOLLAR.And in the spirit of the
2016 weekly savings jar, I thought this was appropriate.

I used a tiny smear of glue stick to attach each Band-Aid to
the cardstock squares and printed out “to/from” stickers for the backs using regular address
label sheets. I know a lot of Valentine’s cards use the “I’m stuck on you!”
line, but I thought I’d make this a little more personal and true to my voice.
I like to let everyone I love know…pretty often…that they are stuck with me!